By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the next installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the sixth installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
“But if you are going to wear blinders then you do not know the world.”
-Miriam Makeba
We’re all guilty of doing it. We get so busy, and maybe a little complacent, and forget to take the blinders off in order to see and experience our FBO from the customer’s perspective.
By Ron R. Jackson and John L. Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the fifth installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation
“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and be prepared to be surprised.”
-Denis Waitley
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the fourth installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
“History is a vast early warning system.”
-Norman Cousins
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the third installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
"Your success in life isn't based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers and business." — Mark Sanborn
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the second installment of our new AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
As a follow-up to our first survival tip, ‘Keep Your Customers Close…and Your Margins Closer’, let’s examine a syndrome that has been occurring with FBOs that also run an MRO business.
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the first installment of our new AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series will focus on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
Our first survivor tip, ‘Keep Your Customers Close … and Your Margins Closer’, is inspired by dialogue in the film, The Godfather: Part II. It means, in order to survive today’s economic FBO climate, you need to focus on your two most important revenue generators: your valued customers and your fuel margins.
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson
Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Recently, we attended the National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA) Schedule and Dispatchers (S&D) Conference in San Antonio. While there, we had the opportunity to address a group of FBO leaders regarding the present state of the industry and where we saw the future headed in 2013.
Throughout the year we have many opportunities to talk with FBOs from various parts of the country. At the NATA FBO Success Seminar, we conduct twice a year, we network and exchange ideas and information with FBO owners, operators and managers. Also, we receive feedback from this blog we write for AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection.
By Ron R. Jackson, Co-Founder, Aviation Business Strategies Group
In a previous blog, we talked about making the customer your fan. It’s a reversal of roles … a conscious change in attitude by your customer service staff.
Keep in mind, your customer service staff consists of anyone that comes in contact with the customer. This would include customer service representatives (CSRs), line service technicians, flight instructors, charter pilot and the FBO owner or manager.
By John Enticknap, President, Aviation Business Strategies Group
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” - Niccolo Machiavelli
According to Machiavelli, selling your FBO can be a perilous process. But in my experience, you can even out the bumps and curves by developing a logical plan, well enough in advance, that will lead you to a successful transaction.
By Jim Gardner
As the saying goes, there is good news and there is bad news. Which would you like to hear first?
First, let’s look at the good news for the FBO Operator. We are in the continued midst of a soft aviation insurance market that began in 2006. Since then, aviation insurance rates have declined to their lowest point in history.
Now, the potentially bad news, beginning in the winter of 2010, many in the aviation insurance industry are predicting a return to a Hard Market.
What is a Hard Market? It is generally characterized by fewer underwriters bidding on a particular risk - resulting in fewer options, increased rates and premiums, decreased limits of liability and less ancillary coverage offered. In addition, there are more stringent underwriting requirements on training with less flexibility for the operational managers.
Editors Note: From time-to-time, FBO Connection bloggers John Enticknap and Ron Jackson invite aviation industry professionals to write a guest blog. For this post we invited Mercer Dye, President of Dye Aviation Facilities, an aviation design and construction management company.
By Mercer Dye
The truth is, most of us in the FBO design and construction business can’t afford the luxury of a guaranteed perfect project - and frankly, no one ever gets one anyway.
As in any endeavor, successful FBO construction projects depend on the owner, or in this case, the FBO owner having reasonable expectations and willingness to participate in the equitable sharing of risks.
By John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
“The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight.” - Carly Fiorni: President Hewlett Packard, 1999-2005
Do you really know what’s going on at your FBO? It seems many businesses operate on a day-to-day, crises-to-crises basis with the managers just along for the ride.
This has validity in numerous market segments, not just in the aviation services industry. During our NATA FBO Success Seminar, scheduled in Dallas on September 12, 13 and 14, we will discuss this and many other topics. However, for this blog post, let’s concentrate on data collection and what we can do to improve our financial numbers. Then, turn it into insight we can act on to operate our businesses more profitability.
By Ron Jackson
“Being a fan doesn't mean being there from the start. It means being there ‘till the end.”
-Anonymous
It’s time for a role reversal in the FBO customer service industry.
Ever since the term “customer service” was first used, our corporate view has been to put the customer on a pedestal and do everything to make them happy. That’s all fine and dandy, as Forrest Gump would say, but it’s a rather dogmatic and reactive approach that can make your customer relationship fragile and leave your employees feeling frustrated.
By John L. Enticknap
What does an external audit program have to do with delivering a better customer service experience? Let’s explore the possibilities.
One of the most popular events at the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) FBO Success Seminar, conducted by the Aviation Business Strategies Group, is a discussion on lowering FBO insurance rates through better operations management. This includes training the CSR and executive staff on safety, customer service, technical procedures and practical application of quality aircraft ground handling techniques.
By John L. Enticknap
Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new. —Og Mandino
As a principal of Aviation Business Strategies Group, I’m always tuned into the FBO industry and attend various workshops and seminars to keep abreast of our ever-changing industry.
At the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) Leadership Conference and Day On-the-Hill, which I just returned from, I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with more than 200 industry leaders and get a sense of what is happening to the FBO business on a macroeconomic scale.
by John L. Enticknap
If you build that foundation… the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won't crumble.—Henry Kravis
Like most FBO owners and operators, you probably wonder what your FBO is worth. To answer this question, you should start by asking another important question: What is my lease worth? That’s because they are inherently linked.
If you are thinking about capitalizing your investment or looking to sell your business, the first thing a banker or a buyer will assess is the value of your lease, especially the length and terms.
A loyal, happy customer remains a customer for a greater length of time. So you should be tracking your customers to make sure they are coming back to your facility every time they travel to your destination. You can use a flight tracking service to monitor incoming flights.
Your line service personnel should become familiar with regular customers’ aircraft registration numbers and be alert when tracking inbound flights to your airport and surrounding airports.
If you haven’t seen a regular customer in a while, pick up the phone and call to learn why. If your line service personnel notices a regular customer going to a competitor, again, pick up the phone and find out what you might have done wrong.
Source: Strativity Group, in partnership with Customer Service Experts.Research shows that most unsatisfied customers won’t tell you there is a problem before they jump ship. They simply change their buying habits. So you need to know why they made a change and why they became unhappy with your service.
As the chart indicates, a happy customer is a loyal customer and stays with you for a longer period of time. A satisfied customer also tends to spend more and, thus, take on more fuel at your facility.
And oddly enough, a satisfied customer does not need incentives or discounts to continue being loyal. In fact, they do not mind paying a small premium to be treated well.
In the end, the payoff for delivering a truly memorable customer service experience is a contingent of loyal, highly engaged advocates who will recommend you at the drop of a hat.
Recently, I read a sidebar article about Dollar Hot Dog Night at the Rangers’ stadium. On Wednesdays when the Rangers are in town, they cook some 65,000 hot dogs for hungry patrons. At a buck each, the promotion attracts a lot of families to the game, and the conies are quickly snatched up!
I’m sure you have your favorite sport, and if it’s baseball, you know how a hot dog with your favorite beverage tastes on a warm summer night around the diamond. It hits the spot! But something else is going on at the ballpark.
In the article, the writer asks a university professor for his opinion on why a $1 hot dog attracts so many to a game when patrons can have all the hot dogs they want for a lot less money by buying them at a supermarket and eating them at home.
His answer, posted in the Dallas Morning News, is what spurred me into writing this blog post.
According to Ernan Haruvy, a management professor at the University of Texas at Dallas, a perceived deal, such as the $1 hot dog, depends on several factors, including:
OK, that all sounds logical because the customer is at the ballpark; therefore, the surroundings are fun. Secondly, because a day watching baseball is better than a day at work, the customer is probably in a pretty good mood. And lastly, $1 for a dog that usually costs $4 seems like a relatively fair value.
But what does this have to do with an FBO?
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